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Tuesday, June 11, 2024

Heather du Plessis-Allan: Our gas is running out faster than we ever thought it would

I'm starting to get a little bit nervous about whether we are ever going to be able to attract overseas investors back into our oil and gas industry.

I mean, you think about it - the world has known since October last year that we were back open for business, because that’s when the coalition Government won the election.

From there, it was clear that all three parties wanted to reverse the oil and gas ban. Since October, the world knew things were going to change in New Zealand.


But from what I can tell, no one is interested in coming here to do the work. And frankly, if no one has registered an interest in 9 months, I think we might need to start getting realistic about this.

It's probably over, the ship has sailed.

You can sort of tell by the language that Shane Jones is using that he might know this too - he's talking about trying to make it more appealing for investors to come back by giving them really long-term contracts.

It's almost desperate stuff, and I suspect it's because he can see no one’s nibbling after nine months.

And why would they?

Labour has already raised the prospect that they are open to nixing projects again once they get back in. Investors around the world will see that - and who wants to put billions of dollars of investment in to have Labour come and ban your business again?

So what this means is that, short of a miracle and some overseas investor taking a punt on us, we are probably gonna have make do with what we’ve got. And that’s not a good prospect.

Our gas is running out faster than we thought it would, we’re facing lights out this winter because of a gas shortage. We have been warned about this.

It seems to me - and I'm sorry to say this - that Huntly is going to be a very busy girl burning that coal for a long time.

Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show HERE - where this article was sourced.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have been in the industry for years. Nobody from outside will come to NZ to drill for gas or oil probably for ever.
There are a number of capable companies in NZ but they fall into two groups, namely those that are producing really just 3 or 4 companies, they were vilified by the fools for 6 years and they just want to let enough gas out to keep the lights on but at very high prices they will never have made so much money ever.
The others are where there is hope but only the onshore can provide a short term outcome but no fresh leased land has been released.
So what next???

Anonymous said...

Until Huntly can’t. How old do you think she is?

Doug Longmire said...

Ardern's self important "captain's call" to destroy New Zealand's gas and oil industry is now really hitting home.
You must be so proud, comrade Cindy !!

Anonymous said...

Let’s not forget that Huntly Power Station used to have a conveyor belt at the back which ran over the hill and down into Huntly West mine, to high-grade thermal coal from a highly-mechanised government-run mine.
Sadly, State Mines is no more.
But Huntly Power Station (which once ran on gas) continues to burn low-grade brown coal shipped all the way from Indonesia in ever-increasing quantities.
The high-grade thermal coal is still in the ground at Huntly.
Cindy’s decision sure made a lot of sense - not.
Supporters of the human-caused climate change scam must be shaking their heads.
Non-supporters just add the situation to the growing pile of nonsense were asked to swallow.

Allen said...

Maybe there are electors who will not really understand how seriously she damaged this country until the lights do go out and it is explained to them in simple terms why.
Some may also still not understand why wind and solar don't produce at night when there's no wind, and that the only way to fill the gap is with expensive storage systems which in themselves consume electricity.
Again maybe they may be happy to sit around in the dark in the knowledge that their sacrifices to the God of climate change are saving the planet, albeit not in any measurable way.